Schumer’s plan to bring overseas jobs back to the U.S.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer would offer companies that bring overseas jobs back to the United States a full two years of payroll tax relief on those jobs, while closing tax loopholes that allow companies various tax benefits for closing domestic plants and shifting production offshore.

His measure is called the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, and it would:

Give businesses replacing an overseas job with a new job in the United States to get a 24-month break from paying the employer share of Social Security payroll taxes on the wages paid to the new employee;

Prohibit businesses from taking any deduction, loss or credit for payments it made as it reduced or ended any operations in the United States and started or expanded similar operations overseas. Severance payments or outplacement costs and employee retraining would be excluded;

End the practice of allowing companies to defer taxes on income earned by overseas subsidiaries until the income is actually brought back to the United States, for companies that reduced or closed similar operations in the U.S. That practice, known as “deferral,” actually gives overseas operations an advantage over domestic competitors, Schumer says. Overseas operations that actually sell their products overseas would be exempt from this restriction.

Schumer said that 85,400 manufacturing jobs have been lost in New York state over the past three years. Some 5,600 of those job losses came in the Capital Region.

The legislation is sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Schumer, and Senators Richard Durbin and Byron Dorgan, all Democrats.

@ Barry- I can see where you might be able to ask the question of where the senators outrage was when 84,000 jobs left the state, but can you actually argue with the legisation that he is proposing here?

This is all band aids on a gunshot wound. You want to bring jobs back to the US? Break apart the unions, get rid of the payroll taxes and drastically lower property taxes that hammer large everyone including large manufacuring facilities. Also get rid of minimum wage, let the free markets work.

@1 I can understand your anger. Unfortunately though its conservatives not liberals that follow the principle of if its cheaper for a company to do business overseas there is nothing a government should do to stop them.
Back in the 80′s Reagan and the republicans motto was pretty much”We don’t need those dirty factories”
If you want the government to protect the jobs of United States workers than unfortunately like it or not you are liberal.
Its not a conservative principle to protect jobs.
The conservative principle is that the government shouldn’t interfere with the operations of business.

2. Micro-managing a segment of the economy that is an integral part of a global economy via US tax changes and thereby expecting to be able to control a corporation and alter its objectives seems unlikely. (A corporation can simply move the corporation offshore and outside the proposed tax laws.)

3. The growing/emerging markets for manufacturing exist in places like India and China where the populations dwarf the US. To participate efficiently in these markets you need to be there. (Carrier Corp. in Syracuse turned down an incentive from NYS to keep mfg. jobs in Syracuse. Simply put they needed a facility to participate in these new and growing markets and needed that production facility located in the best place for cost and service purposes – and it wasn’t Syracuse NY)

4. Punishing corporations for doing what is in the best interest of the corporation is non-productive.

@ #5;UTC, who operates Carrier made $1.1 billion dollars during the second quarter of 2010, so I’m not to quick to offer up any excuses for them. What I do believe is that companies like Carrier have an obligation to its employees in this country to keep those jobs here and not in places like India & China. The idea that carrier couldn’t build a facility in Syracuse is laughable. They could have, but they didn’t b/c it would have lowered profits, so from a philosophical standpoint, profits are more important than jobs in the eyes of the corporation, and I can understand that. The issue is that you can’t have one and not the other. There comes a time, when the Carriers, and GE’s of the world, who for the most part have deserted towns like Syracuse and Schenectady, not b/c the workers weren’t efficient or couldn’t get the jobs done, but b/c the bottom line profits would be greater from obtaining cheap labor forces in China & India. I would argue that that philosophy is un-American and has been a detriment to not only the US worker, but the US economy as a whole. Until corporate America and CEO’s realize that making $50M p/year AND keeping jobs in the usa is more important than making $200M p/year and shipping those jobs overseas, we are doomed. Manufacturing in this country as we know it today, is no longer. All politics aside (and I’ve never voted for Chuck Schumer) you can’t argue with the merits of what this bill proposes. We’ve come to a point in this country where democrat VS republican, right VS left has overtaken us. Until we can somehow try to work together and get things done, I feel that 10% unemployment and the death of the middle class will be the norm. We can debate the merits of how corporations in this country should operate, but I think we can agree that jobs in America, today, are more important than jobs in India tomorrow.

Dear Barry… although I appreciate your regurgitation of the FOX news network’s stances, let’s not gloss over legit examples of success by pushing the sky is falling scare tactics that the “pro-capitalist” conservative segment has so perfected. Is the United States at a definitive disadvantage when it comes to the stick the widget in the widget hole manufacturing type plants, perhaps, but what about the more advanced era production lines that revolve around microchips, batteries etc? Regardless, it’s not greater populations in these countries that create the competitive disadvantage, these countries could have 30 billion people, it’s the standard of living, or there lack of, that provides the attraction to corporations. “Manpower” is hardly as relevant in this technological era… also, you somehow find a way to state that we are “punishing” these corporations by taking away the very tax incentives you simultaneously argue are of no consequence from an enticement perspective… classic… anyway, while it’s easy to ignore the tax benefit impacts US corporations are at times enticed by, it’s irresponsible to disregard headway made in your own region, i.e. Global foundries, GE’s alternative energy growth and movement into Schenectady, an increased R&D presence in Niskayuna and the forthcoming battery plant. (After an era of Jack Welch trying to get out of the capital region, J. Immelt has made a point to re-anchor in Schenectady and his decisions have reflected tangible results) TAX benefits that these companies have been provided are a significant reason they have decided the Capital region is the place that makes the most sense to them. Global Foundries didn’t think Germany had an educated enough population? I doubt that was the deciding factor… Let’s also not forget the peripheral and support business’s that are sure to follow these ongoing developments as well, i.e. the new machinery manufacturer in the Watervliet arsenal, logistics companies, local retailers etc. As for your lone example, Carrier Corp, how convenient that you fail to mention their 30 million dollar investment in Dewitt, NY where they have decided to make it their R&D headquarters… perhaps you should try to think progressively and realize that the manufacturing jobs being lost to these aforementioned nations are not actually the jobs we want anyway, what we should focus on are the types of jobs and companies we actually seem to be starting to attract … This country, and especially NY state, needs to make doing business less expensive to create more jobs we’d want and that breed other corollary business’ and not fret over losing simple task manufacturing jobs. Slim down government, harness all insurance expenses with better oversight, regulate executive salaries for “publicly traded” companies (greed pervades), allow common sense to prevail over self interests etc. Unfortunately, until someone smarter than us devises a way to do that, the facts bear out that tax exemptions etc. do create corporate dialog and corresponding jobs.